Platt, Arlo and All --
[Platt quotes Pirsig]:
"Dynamic Quality, the source of all things, the pre-intellectual
cutting edge of reality, always appears as 'spur of the moment.'
Where else could it appear?" (Lila, 11) .
[Arlo asks, rhetorically]:
How on earth can any human being not experience
"the cutting edge of reality"?
[Platt asks, earnestly]:
How on earth can any human being experience the cutting
edge of reality when it only appears as "spur of the moment."
In other words, how can anyone experience that which
doesn't appear to him?
Seems like a reasonable question, given the strange wording of Pirsig's
assertion.
But the author speaks in metaphors, and while we can delight the ears by
repeating
them, to borrow from a biblical phrase, "we know not whereof we speak."
I've been chastised for complaining that too much of philosophy is expressed
in poetic language, and this is a typical example. There are writers whose
words and phrases are written to make us feel good, and there are others who
use language to explain concepts. Unfortunately, the brilliance of Pirsig's
prose more often than not outshines his power of explication.
Consider the question "Where else could it appear?" following the
proposition "Dynamic Quality ...always appears as 'spur of the moment'". Is
a "spur of the moment" a place in space or an interval of time? If it's
the latter, why didn't he ask: WHEN else could it appear? (Perhaps because
it lacked poetic eloquence?)
And exactly what is experience -- specifically, Pirsig's "value-experience?
As someone for whom Value is more comprehensible than Quality in the context
of experience, and who sees no need for "dynamic" and "static" distinctions,
the meaning of Pirsig's statement is quite clear. Experience is both
valuistic and incremental. It's what appears to us at the instant of
cognition when Value is actualized as an "appearance". We become aware of
experience as "knowledge" only by integrating it with previous increments of
experience (from memory) and making intellectual sense of it. Thus, man's
knowledge (understanding) of reality is the cumulative sum of incrementally
experienced "appearances" (phenomena) over time.
Since each successive appearance represents some aspect of objectivized
Value, the "cutting edge of reality" is a metaphor for "finite experience".
In other words, our experience of Value is always relative and
differentiated. We do NOT experience Value absolutely or directly. Our
interpretation of reality is based on a continuing series of "value
constructs" which we call "experience". Physical reality is a space/time
jigsaw puzzle that we ourselves create from value-sensibility. And, since
ALL experience is actualized from Value, nothing is gained epistemologically
by applying the labels "static" or "dynamic". Existential reality (the
world of appearances) is relational, differentiated, and incremental
(evolutionary) in space and time. The mode of human awareness is what
Pirsig means by "spur of the moment" experience.
Anyway, that's how I see it. I'll light up a fresh cigar while waiting for
you two to "reset" my explanation in the language of MoQspeak.
Thanks for your time.
--Ham
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
